On a hot day in July, Darrell, who is serving time at the Clarinda Correctional Facility, pulled a black carrot out of the ground from one of the prison’s three large gardens. He stared at the carrot in amazement and laughed.
“Wow! Look at that,” Darrell said. “Never in life would I ever think that … I only thought carrots were yellow and orange.”
This was Darrell’s first time seeing a black carrot. (The prison only allows inmates’ first names to be used.). Darrell and about a dozen others incarcerated at the medium-security prison in southwest Iowa are enrolled in a two-year apprenticeship that teaches them gardening, landscaping and conservation.
The real attraction, though, is beekeeping.
Learn more at Iowa Public Radio: https://www.iowapublicradio.org/2021-07-19/what-caring-for-bees-teaches-inmates-about-life-beyond-prison